About 18 months ago we decided to begin creating a full Church Management System option. So, we created the contributions feature, then we expanded what we were doing to an extensive members and family tracking and much more. We’ll continue adding features, but with this one, I believe we’re ready to offer you a full CMS solution. We’ve pretty well learned how to do check in for kids and volunteers and last week we added security. Here’s the scoop.

Electronic children’s check-in and security! This is huge. From the Administrator Assistant main menu only, click on the Childcare check-in customization steps to customize labels and set up / test your label printer. From the Small Group Admin or Membership Admin level go to password administration and customize a password for check-in login (default is admin password plus “check”). Then using Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher login using this new password. Hold down control and click Check-in for the groups you want to check in at that station. All you’ll have to do is check them present and click on the label button to print a label for kiddo and another one for dad/mom with a randomly designated 5 place alpha-numeric. When everyone is checked in, just click to save the attendance. If you want to send an email, put in the parent’s email for the kids and email parents an update on what happened in class. I’ll update the video page soon with a new video to walk you through training volunteers.

Manual check in roster and entering attendance. Click “Reports and Communication” – “Group Reports” – “Check in roster”. Allows you to pick dates / groups to print out a check in sheet for either a single group or a whole set of a certain group type. When you’re ready to enter attendance as a batch, login as the Administrative Assistant, click Enter Batch Attendance, then designate the same groups and dates. This will enable you to enter attendance for each group quickly over any date range.

Parent and family communication. Click “Reports and Communication” – “Either Group Reports or Member Reports” – “Family Labels”. Notice we have added two new options to designate “Parents of” or “Lastname Family”. This will be great for sending out postcards, flyers and letters.

How much extra does it cost? Nothing extra. We’re not going modular in our business plan. If you start using these other features, you might find you have more people in the database which may take you to the next pricing level. We figured that would be enough. Plus, this is aligned with our commitment to constantly improve the tool to better serve churches. I pray you find these features for children’s ministry helpful.